As you drive out of Newtonmore towards
Kingussie on the A86, you
pass on your right the car park for the Highland Folk Museum. This superb
living museum turns out to be one of the most fascinating days out anywhere in
the Highlands and is a "must see" for anyone visiting or travelling through
this part of Scotland.

Leanach Church

Post Office & Sweet
Shop

Inside the Sweet
Shop

Aultlarie Farm Steading

Aultlarie Tin Cottage

Inside the Tin Cottage

Sheep Fank and
Shepherd's Bothy

Garage

Inside Knockbain
School

The first surprise is the sheer scale of the museum. It occupies a
site approaching a mile long and occupying an area of 80 acres or 32 hectares.
If you are planning a visit, the museum recommends allowing 3-5 hours to see it
all: and you could easily spend all day here without running out of things to
see.

The museum comprises three main areas. The central area, nearest the
car park, is home to the reception and visitor services. It also houses a
fascinating and steadily growing collection of traditional buildings, and their
contents, relocated to the site from various parts of the Highlands. The
eastern end is home to Aultlarie Farm and a range of agricultural buildings and
equipment. And at the western end is what many will consider the highlight of
their visit, the recreated township of "Baile Gean", based on an abandoned
township near Kingussie as
it would have appeared in 1700.

From the car park you pass through the reception. Off to your left
are the white buildings that house the cafeteria and gift shop, guest toilets,
and an audio visual room providing an introduction to the museum, while ahead
of you is the children's play area.

The Weaver's House in
the Township

Peat Fire
in a Township House

Grinding Corn in the
Township

Interior of
a Township House

Travelling People's
Camp

Newtonmore Curling Club
Hut

Ardverikie Estate
Sawmill

Inside the Sawmill

The site is so large that as you initially look around, you only
really appreciate the central area of the museum. Two large buildings
immediately attract your attention. The red and cream T-shaped building near
the rear of the car park is Leanach Church. This is made of timber with
corrugated iron cladding and was originally built in 1900 from a kit. It stood
on part of Culloden
Battlefield, before becoming redundant in 1980 and being re-erected in its
current location in 1987.

The green building with a red roof is another corrugated iron kit
building, this time a school, which was built in 1925 at Kirkhill near
Inverness. It was moved to
its current location in 1999. Both the school and the church are fully
furnished and fitted out as they would have been in their original locations.
The school appears as it would have done in 1937 and comes complete with 40
desks, books, maps and the school bell.

It is at about this point that you begin to realise that not only is
the museum home to a large number of fascinating buildings, but almost all have
a fully fitted-out interior to be explored as well as an exterior to be
admired. Suddenly the real scale of what has been achieved at the museum
becomes clear.

Elsewhere in this part of the museum is MacPherson's Tailor's Shop;
the Clockmaker's Workshop; and the Joiners' workshop. The Clockmaker's Workshop
originally stood in Rose Street, Nairn and was where Alexander McIntyre
repaired bicycles and clocks, often with tools he had invented for the job. It
was relocated to the museum in 1998. The Tailor's Shop and the Joiners'
Workshop were moved here in 2002, from Newtonmore and
Kingussie respectively.

Further west you enter a wooded area, a relic of commercial timber
production in the 1920s. Here you encounter a traditional Travelling People's
Camp, a tent with washing hanging out to dry outside. This serves as a reminder
of a way of life common in the 1940s and 1950s but which ceased in the 1970s.
Nearby is a natural amphitheatre in the woods, and beyond it a replica of the
Newtonmore Curling Club Hut beside a beautiful curling lake. Further on is a
replica of the Ardverikie Estate Sawmill, complete with water wheel and
original fixtures and fittings.

For many, the highlight of a visit to the Highland Folk Museum will
be "Baile Gean" Township. This is traditional Highland crofting village
recreated to appear as it would in 1700. All the houses, barns and other
buildings are built using traditional methods, and most are furnished. A number
have central peat fires, which were left burning on even the warmest of days,
and the township is brought to life by human re-enactors and by livestock
wandering around.

"Baile Gean" is the Gaelic for Township of
Goodwill and never actually existed. It is, however, closely based on a
real settlement at Easter Raitts, which stood high on the side of the Spey
Valley north east of Kingussie until abandoned in
the 1800s.

Restarting back in the centre of the museum's huge site and walking
east leads you past a corrugated iron cottage complete with an outside privy to
a reconstructed sheep fank and shepherd's bothy. Nearby fields are being farmed
as they would have been in 1930. At the east end of the site is the largest
building which remains "in situ". This is the Aultlarie Farm Steading, where
the clock has also been turned back to 1930. Nearby is the Aultlarie tin
cottage, built as farm workers' accommodation in the 1890s. The Aultlarie farm
buildings are completed by the farmhouse which was built on slightly higher
ground in the mid 1800s. One room is home to a recreated sitting room from
1930, while another now accommodates a sweet and ice cream shop.

Not all the buildings at this end of the site are in their original
locations. The farmhouse has attached to it a small lean-to post office which
was built in Glenlivet before being moved here in 2001. Not far away is a
commercial garage built in Kingussie in 1928 and moved
here in 1999, complete with a 1928 petrol pump and the rusting wreck of a car
of about the same vintage. Near the railway line which runs along the rear of
the site is a railway halt which once stood at Etteridge, south of
Newtonmore.

The Highland Folk Museum was founded in 1944 by Dr Isobel F Grant to
house her extensive collection of artefacts reflecting Highland rural culture.
Dr Grant's collection and associated archives were originally housed in
Kingussie. The museum has
been based at a much larger site in Newtonmore since 1995, where it continues
to grow in terms of the number of rescued and relocated buildings.